IT SOUNDS like a recipe for disaster: activating a hidden viral infection in a patient already sick with cancer. Yet, not only is this technique being used to produce images of tumours, but mounting evidence also suggests the activated virus might be able to help treat the cancer.
The virus in question is Epstein-Barr (EBV). It infects 90 per cent of people worldwide, living in the cells of our immune system, and for most of us it produces no symptoms when in its harmless latent phase. Latent infection can, however, produce proteins that cause the cells it inhabits to turn…
